I’m excited to share a new Story Synth format: Hexflower. Check out the Hexflower Demo and the accompanying template Hexflower Template Spreadsheet.
Hexflowers are tools for randomly exploring narrative spaces, shaped like a big hexagon made of small hexagons. One hex is selected at any point and it contains information relevant to the game. Over the course of the game, other hexes are selected through a variety of random or non-random means.
The Story Synth Hexflower format was co-designed with game and design luminary Raph D’Amico and he did a phenomenal job making the format look and feel great.
There are a bunch of customOptions that are unique to Hexflower format: randomization, warping, staring hexes, and more. You can read more about them in the documentation.
Hexflowers were popularized by Goblin’s Henchman and the Hex Flower Cookbook has plenty of examples and thoughts on how to make and use Hexflowers. I also recommend checking out Emily Short’s blog post on Narrative States as she has great insights on interactive fiction that translate well to Hexflowers.
Inspired by Emily’s post, I’m noodling on a game about a revolution that leverages her diagram approach.
I’m going to keep adding features to the format so if you have requests let me know. Also – if you end up creating a Hexflower game, I’d love to hear about it!